Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

and when they were running all those deficits, someone had to pay. We had to borrow the money, and 70 per cent of that money has come from people living overseas. So now we have to pay the interest back on that debt. Labor think there is no problem. The Labor Party are in denial—not just about what they have done but also about the challenge for the future. That is why they are opposing $40 billion of savings, of which $5 billion of those savings were promises they made at the last election which they now want us to break. Their own savings they oppose.

Now we have a clear situation of the hypocrisy of Labor. They are opposing the savings they took to the last election which would fix the budget; they are now opposing a co-payment on Medicare, which they originally came up with; they are now opposing freezing of family tax benefits, which they did in government; and they are now opposing changes to university fees, which they initially introduced. They have no principles. They are outright hypocrites—but Australia is paying.

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